Towards the end of August preparations were completed, and on Sunday, the twenty-sixth (September 5), the fleet weighed anchor “after the sermon.” “The fleet was composed of two yachts called the _Hollanse Tuijn_ (Holland Garden), the _Prinses Royael_, a galiot called the _Hoop_ (Hope), mounting four guns, the flyboat _Liefde_ (Love), mounting four guns, the vice-admiral’s yacht the _Dolphijn_ with four guns, the yacht _Abrams Offerhande_ (Abraham’s Offering), as rear admiral, mounting four guns” and the _Waag_ (Balance), and it carried a force of “three hundred and seventeen soldiers besides a company of sailors.”[21] Every precaution was taken to prevent the Swedes from obtaining knowledge of the preparations. Shortly before the expedition left New Amsterdam Edmund Scarborough desired to return to Virginia with his vessel, but he was granted permission to do so only by furnishing bail to the amount of £5,000 sterling as a guarantee that he would not enter the South Bay or South River either directly or indirectly and that his people would promise under oath not to give information to anyone on sea or on land. These and other precautions were so successful that Rising was not aware of the impending danger before it was almost on him. About the beginning of August, however, news of Stuyvesant’s intentions reached the Indians, who straightway carried the intelligence to New Sweden. Rising immediately called the council together, who decided to despatch two spies, Jacob Sprint and Hans Månsson, to Manhattan. “About the same time Sven Höök with four men was sent down the river to reconnoitre, but he returned on the tenth of August, having observed nothing.” Månsson and Sprint, however, returned five days later from “Staten Island ... bringing a complete and sure intelligence that the director general of New Netherland intended to come ... [to New Sweden] with four large and several small ships and seven or eight hundred men.” Sven Höök was again sent down the Bay with some soldiers on the sixteenth, but he soon returned without news. Having been ordered down the river a third time to watch the enemy, he appeared on August 30, reporting that he had seen two or three ships in the Bay the previous evening.